Howard
J. Bashman is a nationally-known
appellate lawyer who appears regularly
before the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit and Pennsylvania’s
state appellate courts. In 2003,
American Lawyer Media named Bashman
one of Pennsylvania’s top
40 lawyers under age 40 on the
strength of his appellate litigation
practice.

In 2003, Senior
Third Circuit Judge Ruggero J.
Aldisert published a newly-revised
edition of his highly acclaimed
book “Winning on Appeal.”
Bashman is one of just a few nationally-recognized
appellate lawyers who, along with
many federal and state court appellate
judges, provide advice in the
book on how to achieve excellence
in appellate brief-writing and
oral argument.

Bashman was born
and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
where he attended the William
Penn Charter School from kindergarten
through twelfth grade. He then
attended undergraduate school
at Columbia College in the City
of New York, where he was named
a John Jay National Scholar and
won the George William Curtis
Prize in Oratory. In 1989, he
received his Juris Doctor degree
with distinction from the Emory
University School of Law, where
he served as Managing Editor of
the Emory Law Journal and received
the Emory University School of
Law Merit Scholarship.

Following law school,
Bashman had a two-year clerkship
for Judge William D. Hutchinson
of the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Third Circuit. Thereafter,
Bashman joined the law firm of
Montgomery, McCracken, Walker
& Rhoads as an associate in
the litigation department, where
he focused on the practice of
appellate litigation. While at
Montgomery, McCracken, Bashman
briefed and argued numerous appeals
in the Third Circuit and the state
appellate courts of Pennsylvania.
He also wrote the merits briefs
for one of the firm’s corporate
clients in an important case pending
before the U.S. Supreme Court,
and the Supreme Court ruled in
favor of that client by a 7-2
vote. Bashman later became one
of the youngest lawyers promoted
to partner at Montgomery, McCracken
in recent memory and chaired its
appellate litigation section.

In March 2001, Bashman
and four other litigation partners
at Montgomery, McCracken left
that firm to anchor the litigation
section in Buchanan Ingersoll’s
Philadelphia office. Bashman joined
Buchanan Ingersoll as a shareholder
and was named chair of its Appellate
Group. While at Buchanan Ingersoll,
Bashman continued to brief and
argue numerous appeals before
the Third Circuit and Pennsylvania’s
state appellate courts.

In addition to engaging
in the practice of appellate litigation,
Bashman also writes about appellate
issues and engages in related
bar association activities. Since
December 2000, Bashman has written
a monthly column on appellate
developments for The Legal Intelligencer,
Philadelphia’s daily newspaper
for lawyers. In January 2001,
Bashman began serving as co-chair
of the Appellate Courts Committee
of the Philadelphia Bar Association.
Bashman also serves as contributing
editor for Legal Affairs magazine,
which hosts his popular appellate-related
Web log, “How Appealing.”

Cases in which Bashman’s
appellate clients have prevailed
in the Third Circuit have repeatedly
made The Legal Intelligencer’s
year-end recaps of significant
rulings. In addition, the Third
Circuit has appointed Bashman
to handle on appeal many important
and complex pro bono matters.

Within the past
few years, Bashman has been profiled
by The Associated Press, The ABA
Journal, Legal Times of Washington
D.C., and The Daily Journal, a
California-based legal newspaper.
As an appellate commentator, he
has been quoted or favorably mentioned
by The New York Times, The Boston
Globe, The Detroit News, The Seattle
Times, Wired News, Salon, and
Reuters. And he has recently published
essays about appellate issues
in The Los Angeles Times and online
at Slate.

Bashman is admitted
to practice law in Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, the Supreme Court
of the United States, and the
United States Courts of Appeals
for the First, Third, Fourth,
Fifth, Ninth, Eleventh, District
of Columbia, and Federal Circuits.